Sarcasm Doesn't Suit You
by Sunni E. Gertz
Summary: Soft tan walls, dark wood tables, and a rather loud atmosphere, the last place in the world you would imagine a man such as Severus Snape to dwell." Rated K due to one naughty word, but it's just one of them. ;3 1st pairing, sorry if it sucks. One-shot.


_**FIRST OFF, I DON'T OWN HARRY POTTER, nor would I want to! (I'd mess it up horribly. XD) BUT I DO ON THE STORY! SUPPORT THE WRITING BY REVIEWING. THANKS FOR READING AND POSSIBLY REVIEWING MY FRIENDS!  
**  
-Sunni Evelyn Gertz_

Soft tan walls, dark wood tables, and a rather loud atmosphere, the last place in the world you would imagine a man such as Severus Snape to dwell. Yet here he was, sitting comfortably with a mug of black coffee in one hand and a muggle newspaper in another. Despite the two distractions though, he could not manage to pay them due attention. No, instead his attention lay with the bustling beauty currently waiting on a few men her age who were enjoying her company far too much for Severus's liking. His coffee grew cold with jealousy from the attention paid to the woman of Goddess like beauty. Smiling one last smile at the men she was waiting on Perdita, for that was the Goddess's actual name, caught his eye and sauntered to his table.

"Do you need anything else Severus?"

To hear her angelic mezzo-soprano utter his name was like heaven to his sinning ears. Still he managed to answer her question without missing a beat, "No, no I'm fine Perdita. I'm simply thinking too much again." His deity nodded in understanding and raced off only to return in record time, her curls bouncing up and down as she made her way back to him.

"What is troubling you this time love, girl trouble?" Perdita teased as she sat across from him.

Severus smirked lightly, still finding that after all of these years that a smile was indeed near impossible. "You've struck gold once again I see." He replied in a warm baritone. "Though the yarn is slightly more tangled than one may believe." His acquaintance merely gazed into his coal eyes with her caramel ones, giving a nonverbal "try me." Taking a relaxing breath in, he quenched her curiosity, leaving out names, as she would ask him to.

"You know about Lily," He asked despite already knowing the answer. "Yes, well, I never told you about the woman after Lily… Well, she was more of a girl really…" He took a sip of lukewarm coffee. "You see, she was a chemistry student of mine for six years, when I taught back in the dark ages. She was a truly brilliant girl. We were never close during her schooling. Afterwards, when she saved me, is when the feelings began. She saved me you know. I had been bitten by a very large, very venomous snake and she sucked out a good amount of the poison without thought of the risk to herself." He smirked into his coffee as he sipped again, his heart clenching with the continuous talk of Hermione. After all, she was dead, dead and gone and where Severus's devil hands could never touch her.

"So you fell in love with your princess in shining armor, then what happened?" Perdita asked, seemingly a child listening to a romantic bedtime story.

"Well," He answered, "It didn't quite happen like that. To make a story short, we worked together on a cure to the snake venom, should no one be around for the next poor soul bitten by such a snake. We worked together for months and finally we found the cure. It was then that everything she was began assaulting my senses, her intelligence, her personality, her beauty-

He stopped short of his explanation. Severus suddenly wasn't sure if he could continue. Ever the soothing soul Perdita stretched out her palm and captured the back of his hand, telling him nonverbally that he didn't have to continue if it was too painful.

"She was killed six months later."

Perdita's eyes bulged and condensed in a matter of seconds. She squeezed his hand and began rubbing it in reassurance. They sat in silence for one second, two…All the while things flying around Perdita's mind as fast as a golden snitch in hot pursuit.

"You know," he whispered, putting a halt to her thoughts, "You remind me of her quite a bit. Intelligent and kind…"

"What about beautiful?" She asked, teasing once more to lift her counterpart's spirits.

"That one," he answered, "I believed was obvious."

The time passed agonizingly slow until Perdita spoke up, suddenly wishing she had never started this little game of two lies and a truth with the man she had grown to love so long ago. "I need to tell you something. Promise me that you will listen to me until the very end." He nodded affirmatively and Perdita began her sob story that filled in the missing puzzle pieces of his.

"I once told you that I was born with an anomaly that I never told you about. One that I was forced to go to a separate school for. Well, I think it's about time I told you." She took a breath in as he had before her and said, "Severus, I'm a witch."

This time it seemed that it was Snape's turn for surprise. However, barely there, the ever-observant Perdita caught onto it in a heartbeat. He could have cheered, he could have screamed with excitement. To think, the third girl he loved in his life was the same as he, a wizard escaping the ravaged system that was the Ministry of Magic. A rare smile crept onto his aged face but sank just as fast. A witch- She knew who he was then. She knew everything he had done, all the intimate details of his life that the boy-who-lived-to-fuck-things-up-for-Severus had spread around without his consent. How stupid he had been! Enraged, he stood from the table, the chair scooting back noisily, and stormed out of the diner he had so enjoyed, the woman inside he so loved who did not love him the same.

"Wait, Severus, come back! You said that you would listen to me to the very end!" She called as she chased after him, having to jog to have to catch up to his quick pace. He turned around mid step and snarled,

"That was before I knew you were- why in Merlin's name are you smiling woman?"

Perdita was indeed smiling, and she replied simply, "I got you to stop and, since we're here, you might as well listen to the rest of my story as you said you would." He snorted, reverting quickly to his old guarded ways, the woman across from him only having a limited amount of time to earn the old Severus back.

"I went to a school for magic children, such as myself, as you might have guessed. There I befriended two boys, one by the name of Harry, the other named Ron. I attended school for six years before quitting, temporarily, to stop a megalomaniac evil doer who went by the alias of Lord Voldemort. During the final battle, I stopped upon a man who had taught me many things and had saved my companions and me many times before. Me being a total Gryffindor, the large group I was in during my school days known for our stupidity and rashness, I sucked the poison I could from a wound on his neck afflicted by a large snake. Then I proceeded with basic healing regimen to finish what I could.

After stopping Lord Voldemort, I finished my education and worked again with the professor I had saved. I soon fell in love with the man I had saved long ago and, seeing that a relationship with him was impossibility, I accepted a marriage proposal from my friend, Ron, even though I didn't love him as I once did. Six months later I disappeared from the Wizarding World, asking my ex-fiancé to tell everyone I had been killed by a muggle rapist, my body never found."

One minute passed by in silence as Severus computed all of the information she had given him. Harry (Potter?) and Ron (Weasley?) as best friends, schooling for six years, leaving, and coming back to finish her education, the girl who saved the teacher she supposedly hated, helping said professor with an antidote for others like himself, getting married, and dying. She could only possibly be one person, and it seemed that his two and three were the same. It seemed the woman in front of him was-

"Perdita is also an alias of mine. My birth name, and the name you know me better by Severus, is Hermione Granger."

Severus's mind stored this information and spat out one highly intelligent question,

"Why? Why leave the Wizarding World?"

Hermione shook her head and smiled softly, teasing him again, "Poor naïve Severus. I didn't want to enter a marriage out of duty when the man I loved was in arms length. It wasn't fair to Ron or myself. So I hid out in the Muggle world, never to return."

Another minute passed by. "So," he said slowly, "You're in love… With me." Hermione rolled her eyes.

"No. I'm in love with another Severus Snape who is twice the arse you are. He also makes crude remarks about children's teeth and is the biggest hypocrite to walk the face of the Earth. How could I not love a man like that?" Severus's face eased up lightly and both corners of his mouth raised a fraction of an inch. She hugged him in response.

It was warm.

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you Hermione," he said softly, "I suggest you stick to straight comedy." Her face buried in his dark overcoat his bat like ears (He laughed at the internal pun made) still managed to catch her near silent words. (Bite me!)

He would agree to do so later, when they were in the privacy of his, and soon after her, home.


End file.
